The only thing consistent about the Flyers at the quarter
turn of the NHL season was their inconsistency. A stellar performance one night
would lead to a pair of clunkers later in the week. A blowout loss last weekend
on Hockey Night in Canada against the Toronto Maple Leafs was the latest
lopsided defeat. Fans were growing impatient as a season, and apparently so
were the men upstairs. On Monday, President
Paul Holmgren and Comcast Spectacor Chairman and CEO Dave Scott made the
decision to relieve Ron Hextall of his duties as the team’s Executive Vice
President and General Manager.
On Tuesday, the team found another way to losing in
embarrassing fashion allowing three goals in the third period against Ottawa to
watch what was a 3-1 lead after 40 minutes become a 4-3 loss in regulation. The
more things change, the more they stay the same. Hextall’s dismissal was an
indication that Holmgren and Scott were fed up with the same middling results
that had the Flyers on the playoff bubble in each of the previous four seasons
Hextall was in charge. Unsurprisingly, two of those seasons ended with first-round
exits, while the other two ended without playoff berths.
Before Hextall took over in 2014, Holmgren was the general
manager and these kinds of seasons were equally as common. Yes, the Flyers made
a run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2010 but that team needed a shootout victory
in the final game of the regular season just to get into the postseason so it’s
not exactly like Holmgren had built a beast. Surely enough, they would lose in
the second round in 2011 and 2012 and have not won a playoff round since.
Despite the results being largely the same under both
general managers, their styles could not have been more different. Holmgren was
super aggressive and one to always go for it, while Hextall opted for a more
conservative approach. That the results were not much different under each man
probably says more about Holmgren than it does Hextall. Sure, the team won several
playoff rounds under Holmgren, but the expectations were always to be in the
Stanley Cup conversation and they fell short far too often. This resulted in a
flawed roster with lots of bad contracts and a depleted farm system. Time and
time again, Holmgren would look to fill the team’s biggest holes even if it
meant overpaying in a trade or in free agency. Coming up short just meant the
Flyers had less roster flexibility and salary cap space.
The Flyers were trapped in mediocrity upon Hextall’s arrival.
They were good enough to get into the playoffs most years but bad enough to not
do anything once they got there. The only way to get out was to peel the
band-aid off. That’s what Hextall did and the focus shifted from a win-now mentality
to hoarding draft picks and collecting prospects. In doing this, it’s hard to
remain competitive, and it usually leads to fielding one of the league’s worst
rosters though the Flyers managed to remain somewhat watchable. For as bad as
they looked at times in last year’s opening round playoff series against
Pittsburgh, they held a two-goal late in the second period on home ice in the
sixth game with a chance to send things back to the steel city for a game seven
against the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions.
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| Tom Gralish/Philly.com Scott and Holmgren ran out of patience on Hextall (left) and fired him on Monday. |
None of this is to say the Flyers were close to becoming a serious
contender, but there was progress being made. The Flyers had one of the deepest
prospect pools in the NHL, lots of cap space for the first time in years and it
looked like the results were starting to come through on the ice after a
98-point season in 2017-18. Hextall then dished out the second biggest contract
of the summer in the NHL, bringing James van Riemsdyk back to Philadelphia for
five years and 35 million dollars. Though, for a lot of the good things he did,
ignoring the horrendous penalty kill and lackluster goaltending situations in
the offseason are probably the biggest reasons the former Flyers goalie is now
also a former general manager.
For a while it seemed like Hextall’s coach Dave Hakstol was
the one bound for the guillotine. Another potential drawback of Hextall in
charge was that many felt he was loyal to a fault when it came to Hakstol and
wouldn’t pull the trigger on a coaching change. Regardless, Hextall is out and in
listening to Holmgren and Scott speak yesterday, it sure seemed like other than
a lack of patience, they had no other reason to fire Hextall now. Scott
referenced the trade deadline at the end of February, and seemed to give off a
vibe that Hextall would have been content to stand pat. Hextall’s methodical
approach was necessary but so out of the norm for the organization that they
assumed he would stay this way forever.
Flyers fans should hope that Hextall’s successor shares a
similar vision, because if he doesn’t, the franchise may be headed right back
to the way things were under Holmgren, which could undo lots of Hextall’s good work.
Maybe Holmgren and Scott will be proven correct and Hextall was not the guy to
see his own plan through. But the only reason he did not have the opportunity
to do so was because he operated in a way the organization was not used to.
